Gina Rinehart's children may have to pay $1 million to run trust, court hears

Gina Rinehart's children may have to pay up to $1 million per year to have a controversial trust run by someone outside the family, a Sydney court has heard.

Mrs Rinehart's daughter Bianca was in court for a second day to argue why she should take over as a trustee after her mother stepped aside.

The bitter dispute over who will run the $5 billion trust has divided the family, with the youngest Rinehart child Ginia siding with her mother in calling for an independent trustee.

Under cross-examination from Bianca Rinehart's barrister, Christopher Withers SC, witness Gary Riordan from Australian Executive Trustees Limited said his organisation would charge $750,000 per year plus GST to do the job - along with a $250,000 first-year set-up fee.

When asked if there was plenty of scope to charge fees on top of this, Mr Riordan replied "yes".

He said AETL colleagues may probably charge around $300 per hour for some additional services.

But he admitted he knew little about how the trust works.

"I have limited knowledge of the operation of the trust," he told the court.

AETL was one of three organisations to put in a tender for the custodial trustee role.

Mr Riordan said he was not aware that any possible future litigation involving Mrs Rinehart was factored into the tender.

Mr Withers then asked him if he had ever been subjected to threats by Mrs Rinehart and again Mr Riordan said no.

Yesterday Mr Withers told the court Bianca Rinehart has the strength of character to run the trust because she stood up to repeated threats and intimidation from her mother since the feud over the trust started almost three years ago.

He said an example of the intimidation was Gina Rinehart emailing Bianca's friend - Olympic swimmer Grant Hackett - and asking him to try to persuade Bianca to pull out of the case to try to replace her as trustee.

Stephen Hardy from another company to tender for the role - Equity Trustees - was also cross examined by Mr Withers.

The court heard that the Equity Trustees tender may involve a conflict of interest because one its directors is the former Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett who personally knows Gina Rinehart.

The three commercial trustees have been formally put forward by the youngest Rinehart child, Ginia.